


I Will Follow

by Vashti (tvashti)



Series: Where You Lead [2]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Iron Man - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, F/M, Family, Gen Work, Iron Man 2, Parent-Child Relationship, Single Parents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-14
Updated: 2013-11-14
Packaged: 2018-01-01 08:55:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1042905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tvashti/pseuds/Vashti
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They eat at Rolfe's.  Pepper is embarrassed.  Tony is stunned--several times.  Sophie is tactile.  It's very much a family meal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written during NaNoWriMo 2013. Mistakes may be more egregious than usual. Please feel free to point them out. Story title from Carole King's "Where You Lead".

“ _Mo-om, I’m serious,”_ drifted up the hall towards Tony, still standing in the living room. Since he knew that Pepper had plenty of experience with that particular flavor of whine—to himself, at least, he could admit to using it often—he was sure that she’d get her way eventually. And her way meant lunch, or maybe dinner—which was exactly what Tony had come out to her apartment for—with her daughter, Sophie. Tony hadn’t been expecting that.

He pictured the young woman again as he’d seen her when he’d stepped through Pepper’s open apartment door, unexpected and unannounced. Mostly it was a picture of Pepper since the girl—too old to be a girl, but there was no way “young woman” was going to be his alt-name for her _in his own head_ —had been just about plastered to her side. A few inches shorter than her mother; thick hair, a darker red-brown that was falling out of a messy bun; pasty like her mom; not as slender? Tony frowned. These were the kinds of things he usually noticed within a two minutes of meeting a woman. Of course that woman wasn’t usually his nearly-my-girlfriend’s adult daughter. And, oh my God, was he scoping his nearly-my-girlfriend’s adult daughter? 

Tony scrubbed his hands over his eyes, then swung his head around. He needed something to do with his hands. And his eyes. “Yes, my eyes before I have to pull them out and lob them out the window.” 

“ _What was that Tony?”_ Pepper called from, he presumed, her daughter’s room. 

“Nothing! I—uh, I’m just going to put the flowers in water?” 

“ _That’s sweet. There are vases in the kitchen.”_

“Excellent! Great! That is…That is wonderful and perfect.” 

Unfortunately, Pepper knew that tone, too. _“Tony, are you sure you’re okay?”_ Her voice rose as she apparently came closer. 

“Fine! Very fine. Just…amazed at how ginormous this bouquet is.” 

“ _Okay. Um, I’ll be out in a minute.”_

“ _Mom, just go! He’s obviously waiting for you.”_

“ _Sophie, really its…”_

Then Tony tuned them out, because he suddenly remembered how he’d thought Pepper and her daughter, whom, in his defense, he hadn’t _known_ was her daughter at the time, were a hot lesbian couple about to do hot lesbian things with the door open to random passers-by. Which really should have been the tip-off because no matter what kind of relationship Pepper was in, exhibitionist she was not. But hearing them again without being able to see them brought the image and those first thoughts back, now with surround-sound guilt for checking out the nearly-my-girlfriend’s kid who wasn’t even a kid _so why was he doing this to himself?!_

“Vase. Where are those vases?” He snatched the bouquet up from where Pepper had left it and made a beeline for the kitchen. 

Classic Pepper, he found an entire cabinet below the kitchen island dedicated to vases she’d collected from previous floral arrangements (not a few of them were apologies from him that she’d bought for herself), arranged by height, size of the neck and color. “Holy…” 

Tony looked from the vases to the flowers, now lying on the counter. “Holy…” Maybe if he broke it into, like, ten bunches. Okay, maybe just four. Or ten, yes ten could work. He eyed the flowers critically, his engineer’s brain flipping on and giving him a coarse measurement of both the bouquet and vases available. Which was why he didn’t hear the Potts women returning to the living room, within sight of the kitchen, until a phone started ringing nearby. 

“Mom, why is _Rolfe’s_ calling me?” 

Tony’s head shot up from what he was doing at the counter. Pepper and Sophie were facing each other, standing in front of the balcony again—Pepper with her back to Tony and Sophie turned in his general direction—but neither of them were paying him any mind. 

He couldn’t see it, but Tony could tell Pepper was frowning. She had frown-y shoulders. “Why would _Rolfe’s_ call you? Did you place your order already?” 

“Not even.” Now Sophie was frowning. “Did you call them?” 

“No. Why would I? This is strange.” 

“Should I take the call.” 

“Yes, before they hang up.” 

Tony watched as Sophie’s face lit up with pleasure when the call connected. “Rolfe!” 

He sank out of sight. 

“Yes I am in town! …You tried calling Mom? …Oh, well, her phone is probably set on vibrate. But why-- Why did we make a reservation?” 

There was a longish silence that almost convinced Tony to pop up and see what was going on but he knew a little something about subtlety and self-preservation. Okay, a lot about self-preservation. 

“Rolfe, neither me nor Mom made a reservation. …In Mom’s name?” 

“ _I didn’t!”_ Pepper whispered. 

“ _Well if you didn’t, who did?”_

Tony silently cursed himself. 

“Tony Stark!” 

-*-*- 

After some debate they agreed to take Tony’s car because, as Sophie pointed out, _“It’s not like your car is any less of a sore thumb in that neighborhood, Mom, and if you two have to run to the office for CEO or Iron Man reasons you, Mom, won’t feel obligated to drop me off here first.”_

“ _I like this kid way better than the one you popped up with last week,”_ Tony had said as Sophie climbed into the cramped backseat of his sports car. _“You should definitely keep this one around.”_

Rolling her eyes as both of the adult children in her life giggled, Pepper had slid into her own seat. She even managed to only glance back her daughter the one time, to make sure that she was comfortable. 

Stopped at the first light beyond Pepper’s apartment, Tony cleared his throat. “So, I uh, checked out the route and it’s a pretty quick drive, even if we hit all the lights, so if we’re going to have that semi-awkward heart to heart in the car the way the family therapists suggest, now would be a good time to start.” 

“Please stop trying to kill my mother.” 

A car honking behind them shook Tony out of his shock. “Yeah. Uh, sure. That’s…that’s totally high on my list of things to do. Like, number one, actually.” 

“Excellent. Thank you, Mr. Stark. I’m done then. Mom? Your turn?” 

A surprised bark of laughter shot out of Tony. “Is she always like this?” 

Frowning slightly, Pepper looked at her daughter through the rearview mirror. Her head was down as she surfed her smartphone. “Not in a long time.” 

That got Sophie’s head up. She caught her mother’s eyes in the mirror. “Really?” 

“Yeah, really.” 

“Oh.” Sophie looked down, fiddling with her phone. When she looked up again she waited until she caught Tony’s eyes in the rearview and said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Stark. I guess I’m more tired than I thought. I shouldn’t have said that to you, not like that. Not at all, probably.” 

Frowning, Tony took a quick look at Pepper. “What did you do? And thank God you never used this hidden power on me. Imagine all the meetings I would have had to actually sit through.” 

Lips turned up at the corner, Pepper shook her head. “It’s not me. Sof did that all by herself while she was in college.” 

“Huh?” 

“It’s a long story.” 

“ _Actually it’s a really short story,”_ Sophie muttered. 

“And it’s Sof’s to tell?” She met her daughter’s eyes in the mirror. 

Who shrugged. “It’s going to come out eventually, Mom. Although it’d probably make lunch less awkward if it waited until we got home.” Sophie shrugged again. “Up to you.” 

“Well…” Pepper said, speaking to Tony though they both kept their eyes trained on the road before them. “…my beautiful daughter, whom I love more than myself—“ 

“I know you do, Mom,” Sophie said, correctly guessing that the last had been for her benefit. 

“—used to be a snarky, annoying brat.” 

Tony threw his eyes at Pepper again. “I didn’t even know you knew those words.” 

“Although not all the time, thank God,” she went on as if he hadn’t interjected, though her cheeks had pinked. “But she could be very rude, very snide and very disrespectful and I had no idea what to do about it. Leaving Iowa helped.” 

“Yeah, my grandparents totally fostered my brattiness. Sorry, Mom. I know it got nasty sometimes.” 

“You weren’t even six yet. I should have been paying better attention, but the damage had been done. Then Sof went off to college.” 

Tony raised one hand. “Oh, oh, I know the answer to this one. Magical maturity happened. What, in the form of a nearly fatal alcohol or drug overdose?” Tony dared to glance back at Sophie over his shoulder. “You do know who I am, right kid? That’s not really an awkward maker. If your _mom_ had been dancing on tables, yeah. But you?” he said facing the road again. 

“Uh, no, I managed not to OD. Although the drinking and weed did happen occasionally.” 

“So you don’t have a perfect kid, Pepper. Until thirty minutes ago I didn’t know you had a kid. This doesn’t even ping the radar.” 

Pepper sighed. “Oh if only.” Smoothing a hand over her perfect ponytail, she said, “Some time after Christmas and before Spring Break my daughter became…” 

“A nudist?” 

“A Christian.” 

Tony snorted. “Yeah right.” When no one responded he turned to Pepper—who was an even brighter shade of red. Then he caught Sophie’s eyes in the rearview, where she had clearly been waiting for him. “Seriously?” 

“You wanna hear my conversion story?” 

“Hell no.” 

Sophie grinned. 

-*-*- 

Tony was still looking at her like a really dangerous bug under glass when they got out of the car. He’d already dropped Pepper off in front of _Rolfe’s_ to smooth things over with the man himself. He was miffed that they apparently felt the need to make reservations. Didn’t they know he always had a seat reserved for his two best girls? 

Getting out of the car, her ponytail whipping about in the steady breeze, she’d left clear instructions for Sophie to direct Tony to a good parking spot—“And I can’t put the car in the garage why?”—and get him safely to the restaurant. 

Which meant that they’d been left alone together. The parking had gone well enough once Tony got over the distance. The walking back to _Rolfe’s_ was…strained. 

Suddenly, Tony said, “But you seem so smart. What did you say you were getting your Masters in?” 

“Just started, but I’m going for Marine biology with a focus on rivers, lakes, streams and estuaries.” 

“How could you do this to your poor sainted mother.” 

Hunched into her jacket, Sophie laughed as the wind tore her hair out of what was left of her bun. She glanced at him. “Does it really bother you that much?” 

“No! Of course not. Okay, yes. Maybe. Maybe yes.” 

“Feeling the awkward?” 

“Yes. Very much yes.” 

“It’ll be fine,” Sophie promised. After a moment, she said, “Mind if I slip my arm around yours?” 

Tony frowned. “What is this, a new way to convert heathens? Touch therapy? Actually, that might be something I can get with,” he said, clearly thinking about it. 

Sophie laughed again. “No. It’s just that this isn’t the best neighborhood ever, but people around here still know me and mom. They’re less likely to bother you if it’s obvious we’re together.” 

“But not impossible.” 

She shrugged. “Maybe they’ll think you’re a dirty old man trying to get into my pants and try to protect my honor.” 

“You sound way too happy saying that.” 

She laughed again. 

“See. Happy. Too much happiness!” But he held out an arm to her anyway. “So why do you think your mom put you on parking duty? Rolfe like her better?” 

Sophie shrugged. “I guess so we could have this moment out here instead of at the table. She really does find my conversion…disconcerting at best and embarrassing at middle.” 

“What, no worst?” 

She shuddered, but that might have been the cold. It was probably the cold. “Honestly, she has no idea where she went wrong.” 

“That makes two of us,” he muttered. 

“Except instead of making me this crazy proselytizer spouting scripture every two seconds and wearing dresses from my neck to my ankles it’s…made me the kid she wish she had for God knows how many years.” 

“Which is where the comment in the car came from.” 

Sophie nodded. “My brattier self comes out when I’m really tired or stressed or whatever. I don’t think she could take two of us,” she added, shooting him a smile. 

“I see.” A moment later he said, “So you used to live around here?” 

“Mmhmm. In the building whose lot you parked in.” 

“Oh, so, then I guess that makes sense then.” 

She smiled up at him. 

“How long?” 

“Um…” Sophie muttered something. 

“Aren’t you a marine biologist?” 

“Biologist! They give us calculators!” 

Tony chuckled. 

Snorting indelicately, but still coiled around his arm, she said, “We lived here until after I went to college. Mom bought her condo—“ 

“That’s a condo?” 

“—about a year after she started working for you, I think, which would have been the beginning of my second year in school.” 

“Huh.” 

Shrugging, Sophie said, “Single mom, far from home with a teenager—better known as a walking stomach—we were kinda poor.” 

“You don’t think your mom wants you to maybe _not_ tell me these things?” 

She looked up at him. “I’m sure she’ll tell you this stuff eventually. Want me to stop?” 

“ _No_. I’m just saying.” They were almost at the last corner before _Rolfe’s_ when Tony said, “So, you think your mom is harboring secret hopes that you’ll convert me and whatever crazy has warped your formerly excellent sense of humor will rub off on me?”

“Doubtful.” 

“Oh.” 

“Although if it did, I don’t think she’d be too mad.” 

Tony frowned down at the young—er, her. 

"She doesn’t like that I’ve become a Christian, but she does like the Christian I’ve become." 

Tony was still looking at her when the light changed. She tugged on his arm. "C’mon, this light is fast. We have to cross." 

 


	2. Chapter 2

Pepper was frowning at them when they came inside. "Sophie." 

Coloring, she pulled her arm free of Tony’s. He glanced between the two women as Sophie plastered herself to her mother’s side. "What? I don’t get it." 

"Sophie is very..." The Potts women shared a speaking look. "…tactile," Pepper said. "She’s very tactile. And you’re n—" 

"Sure I am!" 

Both of them frowned at him. "Even if you were, Tony," Pepper continued, "no one is as tactile as Sof." 

Her daughter nodded. "Besides, you’re not. You’ve got _I’d really appreciate it if you keep back at least 3 feet_ written all over you.” She shrugged.  "It’s okay." 

Tony stuck his tongue out. "What do you know about it, mini-Pep?" 

Snorting, Sophie held up her hands. "Tactile. Where’s Rolfe?" she asked her mother. 

"Right here!" A tall, white-haired and heavily bearded man appeared, roaring his approval. " _Mausipupsi!_ " He caught Sophie in a bear-hug, pulling her from Pepper’s grasp and twirling her around. The startled _Save me!_ expression on Sophie’s face was more than worth it in Tony’s opinion. Finally Rolfe set her on her feet. "How is my _mausipupsi schnucki spätzchen_? It has been too long!" 

Flushed, and now giggling from the extravagant pet names, Sophie could only nod in response as she leaned against the bear-like man. "And who is your friend?" 

Pepper reached for Tony’s hand and drew him forward, her expression almost as soft as when she looked at her daughter. "This is my friend Tony. He’s the one that made the reservation. He didn’t know any better," she quickly added as Rolfe began to splutter. 

"Well... But if he is a friend of yours...?" He looked between the two women who both nodded. "Then welcome!" 

Tony was snatched up into a bear hug, _and being spun around_ , before he quite knew what hit him. 

-*-*-

"You should sit here, Tony," Pepper murmured when they found reached the booth in the back that had been set aside for them. "And don’t take off your jacket until the food arrives. Rolfe keeps it on the cool side in here." 

"Hmm?" Tony stopped staring at the wow-there-are-a-lot-of-these decorations to look at Pepper. "Oh...what? Where do you want me to sit? We’re sitting, right?" 

Pepper chuckled as Sophie slipped past them in the direction of the restrooms. "It’s a lot, I know." 

"It’s like every holiday on Earth vomited on this place." Tony said as he slowly sank into seat facing the back of the establishment. He pulled his attention away from the decorations long enough to see Sophie be swallowed up in the more dimly lit hallway. "At once. And this is your favorite place to go?" 

Pepper nodded. "Mostly when Sof’s in town. We have fond memories." 

"I’d have loved it, too. When I was ten." 

Chuckling, Pepper conceded the point. 

"So...Christian." 

Pepper’s smile immediately became a grimace. "I don’t...I don’t really like to talk about it. You send your kids to college to open them up to new experiences and worldviews. You don’t expect them to come back--" 

"A hateful, narrow minded cultist?" 

The grimace deepened momentarily as Pepper nodded. "Except she really hasn’t. Become a hateful narrow-minded cultist, I mean. Not that I can see. But still." 

"She said you didn’t like that she’d become a Christian but you liked the Christian she’d become." 

Pepper smiled softly. She started to speak when a server came by with a basket of rolls, glasses of water, a black coffee and two fancy glass mugs of hot chocolate. When he left, she said, "That’s probably the best way to describe it. Like I said, I don’t really like to talk about it." 

Tony nodded, reaching for the coffee and taking a sip. "Oh my god! This will put hair in places I was really hoping to never have hair. Pepper. Don’t do it. Don’t drink the coffee. For the love of...science." 

Reaching for her hot chocolate, Pepper chuckled. 

"Is that why you have hot chocolate? That was completely unfair, Pep, setting me up this way." 

"You asked for coffee." 

"Yeah, not something to strip the paint off the Mark IV." 

Smiling broadly, Pepper licked at the foam in her hot chocolate. 

"But, um, to be serious, although obviously not for long since this is me..." Tony stared into the dim hallway, looking for any vaguely female shapes with messy buns coming their way. "...kid, huh?" 

Pepper nodded. "Yup." 

"And that happened...how?" 

"Well, Tony, when two people love each other very much, and sometimes even when they don’t, they like to spend lots of time together--" 

"Pep." 

"I thought I was in love. I thought we were going to get married." 

"How _old_ were you? Nineteen?" 

"Seventeen?" Pepper shrugged. "We were middle school sweethearts." 

Tony stared at her for a long moment, but her serene, matter-of-fact expression never changed. "You’re serious." 

"I was. _Kyle_ wasn’t. But I don’t think he knew that until I was pregnant." Her eyes flit over the decorations covering every available surface of the restaurant without landing on anything, and certainly without landing on Tony. "I mean it probably would have fallen apart when we went off to college anyway. Sophie just...bumped up the timetable." 

"Why didn’t you terminate?" 

"I thought about--" 

"Excuse me, Mom..." 

Tony and Pepper jumped, startled. 

"Can you pass me my phone? I left it on the table." Expression and tone very carefully neutral, Sophie was nevertheless pale and shining with a layer of sweat in the cool restaurant. "I almost forgot that I promised I’d call Minnie when I landed. And here I am. Landed." 

"Sure, sweetheart." 

Sophie took the phone, nodded and hurried away. Swearing, Tony twisted in his seat, watching her go. He swore again. "I’m sorry Pep. I should go--" 

"No." She placed her hand on his where it lay flat on the table as he prepared to push himself to his feet. "Don’t. Sof... She asked me this a long time ago. Once. And I told her the truth." 

"Which was?" 

"I thought about it. Too late, almost. I mean, Kyle and I were _supposed_ to get married. That really was our plan and it had been our plan for years. I didn’t see the baby, Sophie, as a...a _problem_ or an _issue_. A need to re-think the order of the plan, maybe." Looking down, she drew her hand away from Tony’s and fixed the cuff of her blouse. "But never as a bad thing. She was _our_ baby." 

"Then the Kyle thing didn’t work out." 

Gnawing on her lower lip, she shook her head. 

"And you changed your mind." 

"Or I at least seriously considered changing my mind. I can’t honestly say anymore. When we were getting married it was doable. Hard—I wasn’t that naive—but doable. But then it became obvious that it _wasn’t_ doable for him, not the baby, not _us_ , and suddenly me being pregnant wasn’t really doable for me either. 

"And I thought about it." She shrugged. She rested her chin on her fist. 

"But you didn’t. Terminate, I mean," Tony said into the silence. 

Pepper snorted and rolled her eyes as if he’d made one of his tasteless jokes. "Clearly." 

"Regrets?" 

"When I was running on six hours of sleep, tops, in a week? Often. Whenever I could think straight. But for the most part, no," Pepper said, slowly shaking her head as a wistful smile pulled at her mouth. "She’s the best thing I’ve ever made..." Looking off to the side, she missed Tony’s eyes widen as she unknowingly echoed his father’s words. "...the best...the best and longest impromptu meeting I’ve ever had the pleasure of attending for eighteen years." Sighing, she added, "I missed her so much when she went to New York for college." 

Tony studied her for a moment, then said, "So you’d do it all again. If you had a choice." 

"No." 

"What? No? You’re supposed to get soft mom-eyes and say yes! What the hell, Pepper!" 

She chuckled. "Not because of Sophie. To have Sophie, I’d do it all again. But to spare her all the crap we went through for _such_ a long time, I’d have wised up sooner and hope that she’d get the dad she deserved." Propping her elbows up on the table, Pepper laced her hands together and rested her chin on them. "It was me and Sof against the world for a long time, Tony. There’s a lot I would have done differently if I could change that." 

"Huh." 

"Yeah." 

"So..." 

Awkward silence filled the space between them. Pepper let her arms drop and reached for her chocolate, almost all gone. "You know, if you have some place to be, me and Sophie can get back to my place just fine on--" 

Tony caught the other side of the glass mug and gently forced her to put it back in its saucer. "No." He shook his head. "You’re not letting me off the hook that easy." 

Brow arched, Pepper tilted her head to one side. "Is that so, Mr. Stark?" 

"Oh you bet, Ms. Potts" 

"Well..." A flush began to creep up her neck. "Well, good." 

"So that time when you said I was all you had, you were speaking figuratively." 

_"Mom!"_

_-*-*-_

 Eyes closed, Tony mentally kicked himself. He opened them and looked up into Sophie’s drawn face. "What is with your freakishly bad timing?" 

She ignored him in favor of Pepper. "Did you really say that?" 

Pepper stood up and gently maneuvered her daughter into the booth. "I did." 

_"Mom!"_

"Honey, you’re an adult now leading your own life across the country. You said it yourself, eighty-percent of your life is in New York--" 

"No, _all_ of my life is here. With you. I just happen to do eighty-percent of my living there." 

Pepper frowned at her playfully, tapping the end of her nose. "It’s okay to grow up and leave home and have your own life. I actually think you’re doing a pretty awesome job." 

"Seriously?" 

"Mmmhmm. Cults notwithstanding." 

A pained expression briefly crossed Sophie’s face before she rolled her eyes on another exasperated ‘ _Mom’_ and snugged up close to her mother’s side. 

"Now if I could only convince you to call more often." Pepper put her arm around her daughter’s shoulders. 

"Oh, like I can ever get through. I swear we need mother-daughter phones. No one else gets the number." 

"Yours will have to be water-proof." 

"This is true. Do you know how many phones I’ve lost to the Hudson and/or the Atlantic this year alone? I swear, I’m going to invent something." 

"A phone?" 

"Yes. And a homing beacon. Or a retractable belt loop for my waist." 

"I think all of those may already exist, sweetheart." 

"For poor grad students?" 

"Hmm." 

The two continued talking, lightly poking fun at each other with no real intention to hurt, until their waiter came. 

Tony watched them, fascinated into rare-silence by this woman who, after almost a decade of working with her was more of a mystery now than she’d ever been.

  
Fin[ite]

**Author's Note:**

> As I mentioned, there was more of this story in my head than what I had written down for "Where You Lead". I didn't know all of _this_ was in there! While I hit all of the plot points I intended to hit, some things became bigger than expected while others didn't resolve themselves until I'd written yet another story. Upside? This is a trilogy. A completed trilogy. I hope you enjoyed this one as much as the first.


End file.
